I'm looking at starting an office for my startup in South Africa. Since I haven't seen how its done in the US does anyone have any suggestions of things that work well?
Productivity systems / white-boards / game consoles / nap couches (and dark rooms) / ...
Take advantage of stuff that already exists outside your building. Don't try to make the office "fun" prematurely, there are lots of places your team can walk to in 5 minutes. Similarly, fancy conference rooms are a waste when nice hotel cafes are way slicker and you can eat/drink like a king at every meeting for years compared to the cost of setting up your own conf room.
For chairs, I like the Ikea Markus for about $100, which I find just as good as an Aeron.
You need whiteboards, but NEVER buy them new. I buy the huge ones for about $20 a piece from office furniture repo stores. You'll also get desks, cabinets, etc there for 10% of their normal price.
Give good people the ability to work in comfort with enough space to themselves under relatively quiet conditions, and you'll get good results. Buy second hand and don't try to build everything into your little home -- take advantage of the city around you.
Edit: and lots of blank wall space, which allows people to brainstorm and create their own productivity systems with post-its and masking tape.
If I may, a case study of how to make a shitty office:
* Find space based mainly on price. Who cares if it's nearly a different city from where your whole team lives?
* Don't worry about natural light (or even worse, due to whatever circumstances ensure that only some people get natural light)
* Take whatever furniture is lying around.
* Everyone gets the cheapest refurbed machine you can find. If it was good enough for some office worker in 2002, it's good enough for your dev team now!
* Don't get anymore space than you need. When a new hire arrives, they can set up their 'office' in the storage/server room.
* Some cheap-o phones and Skype over a residential-grade DSL line is all you need. It doesn't look bad at all if you start every conversation with "H-hello? Can you hear me? I'm using Skype and-- oh there you are"
I'm an applied mathematician and data scientist at Etsy, and the office is really, really cool. My cousin, who's an architect from Sweden came to visit with his wife and son recently, and described it as a cross between design/art school, playground for grownups, and a computer lab. That's about right. His kid didn't want to leave :-)
We don't have much in the way of silence though—there's a lot of chaos and the place is a (very entertaining) circus much of the time. But if you want peace and quiet, it's pretty much always cool to work from home.
Natural sunlight. Parking 6ft from the entrance. FIOS internet. Walkable, safe, upbeat neighborhood. High resolution monitor. Excellent keyboard. Good chair. Quiet and secure building.
If I had two requests: private bathroom and private kitchen area.
I have to agree... the one thing I desperately want is natural sunlight. I work on the bottom floor of a complex that faces an atrium, so it's like living on the bottom of the rainforest. I get very little light and have no view. It's kind of depressing without a view. I was at a friend's place in Berkeley yesterday and they had a great setup with natural light coming through on all sides of the house: http://picplz.com/user/stammy/pic/hxzl/
The first thing that came to mind is how much better (not sure if that is the right word) I would feel if working in a naturally lit place like that (with a nice view to boot).
The second big thing would be a hi-res monitor, ex 27-inch ACD. That combined with virtual desktops makes a world of difference, even compared to 1920x1200 res.
Third, I would want a decent kitchen area. I don't want to have to go out and eat all the time, because most places workplaces go to eat out at isn't healthy or doesn't have the option of healthy food. I'd much rather have a fridge full of stuff I can cook a quick 10 minute meal with. Working on a startup and eating healthy are not mutually exclusive. And on that note, office space near a gym for the walk back would be nice.
My gym (inside the office). My office is a small room in my rented home and I've divided it into two parts (a work area and a gym area). I have a long bar (with weights, of course), a few dumbbells, yoga mat, jumping rope and a fitball. I could exercise throughout my workday, literally few steps away.
Obviously things like the view out the window and the amenities in the neighborhood are not always the easiest to control, and have huge impact on the price and availability of an office. So I'll focus on the little things that make a huge difference for me at work.
- Coffee, tea, and good water available. I do like taking breaks at times to run out to the coffee shop, but sometimes I just don't have time or energy or money, and being able to step into the kitchen and get what I need is great.
- Full spectrum "natural" lighting. I'm lucky that my office has tons of windows and a view, but when it gets dark or when I'm working on something detailed at my desk, a good full spectrum light is really important both for accurate color and just to be nice to my eyes.
- Dual computer monitors. I suppose this is a bit subjective but I go insane if I don't have a second monitor (doesn't have to be anything special, mine's just a small square) to put things like email and music and reference documents on while I work.
- Refrigerator space. I try to bring lunch most of the week instead of eating out, and more often than not it's leftovers from dinner with other random things thrown in... being able to just toss it in the fridge in the morning is great.
- A comfortable desk chair. I don't know about the $1200 chair (I certainly couldn't afford one at this point) but make sure it won't hurt your back after sitting for a long time.
Awesome! Another South African on HN. Not in the US but I think our guys have gotten a lot of things right (Cape Town software house):
1) The view - I'll be impressed if anyone can better this - the flat side of Table Mountain on the one side, the sea on the other, at night the lights of Long Street stretch out in front of us, and a good view of the stadium if that's your thing. I think that's just luck of the draw though, the company moved here before the CTN foreshore became fashionable.
2) There is no such thing as too many whiteboards, although glass walls with writing on them is also pretty awesome.
3) Great canteen with space to prepare food if you aren't into buying, but on a related note...
4) Close to decent food places, including one favourite that sells sandwich ingredients for a good price
5) A decent number of meeting rooms with whiteboards (the more I work the less I want to use projectors.. but we do have those too)
6) Unlikely that anyone else here would think of this, but you'll know why I bring this up: safety at night... again, luck of the draw but there's a CIDC station positioned half-way between us and the car park, and often a fair number of people around after dark. For me being able to work late (as opposed to early) is A Big Deal.
7) Not my thing but other people like proximity to gym - some cycle to work and shower before coming into the office, others hop in the pool during lunch.
8) There's a TV per floor with one or the other DSTV lite package, basically sports + discovery + Music channels (Mythbusters is most popular lunchtime viewing). The console of some sort that gets close to zero attention
9) (Soft) drinks fridge that is rapidly shortening my lifespan + fruit juice that runs out very quickly
10) A cleaner who brings real character to the office, as well as clean dishes
11) EDIT: forgot, we do have what looks like a decent coffee machine (does foam and stuff) but I'm not a good judge as I'm the only HN reader who doesn't drink the stuff. It is in constant use though.
12) EDIT: forgot some more... WATER COOLER FTW... I like that it is the kind that filters tap water and not the kind that takes those huge bottles of environmentally unsustainable mineral water.
Disclaimer... we're not a huge company but definitely not startup anymore, +-50 in our CTN office.
-Our building is 100 feet from the ocean up on the cliffs. Going outside to get some air and see the Pacific is quite refreshing. It is also a few minutes away from a very nice surf spot.
-We have a nice clean kitchen.
-Plenty of space with large desks, Aeron chairs, and all the pixels you can handle.
-Fresh water. This is big for me since I drink a lot of water.
-Fast network connection. Not blazing fast, but fast enough.
-We have a very nice gym onsite complete with lockers, trainers, massage therapists, pool, track, volleyball, etc.
-Parking right outside building.
-Office is always clean.
-Nice restaurants nearby.
Dislikes:
-Lots of noise/people talking. 90% of it is not work related or interesting which is more the problem than the noise. This quote from PG's quotes page pretty well sums it up: "I'm surrounded by postmodern idiots and blatherers. Your writings give me hope."
-We have quite a bit of wasted space. e.g. a conference area which is rarely used. This space could be used better.
-Restrooms are to small and don't accommodate a full office well. Luckily there are others to use neraby.
We have nice big desks. The chairs aren't Aerons but we don't buy them (in our last office we bought cheap chairs and they sucked. I promised never to do that again, in our next office if I'm buying the chairs, everyone is getting an awesome chair).
We have natural light but I want a balcony. I think if we had a balcony it would be nicer for smokers (smoking's not permitted in the building) and we'd get a decent view of whatever's around.
We're pretty lucky. You can see the Kennet Canal from our roof, but otherwise it just looks like urban Reading, Berkshire, UK. Lately with the frankly crap weather we have more light from above than from outside.
We have a wide selection of alcoholic drinks and hangover cures - ornamental of course. It's mostly wacky stuff we'd never drink, although there's an 'Emergency Guinness' and this weird stuff called 'Dr Hangover - with 47 ingredients!'. We have a Nabaztag that tells us when pentests finish, when investigations are over and when we get paid. Unfortunately he's very insecure so we keep him on his own network.
We don't have whiteboards - we used to but not anymore. Instead we have detachable flipchart paper and blu tack. It's like infinite white boards, that is actually awesome. You just take it down when you don't need it.
We have a golden lucky chinese cat from vegas and a book with pictures of Japanese girls in school uniforms. I think there's a reason for both but I still haven't worked it out.
A good coffee machine/water cooler (hooked up to the mains) is essential. It doesn't have to be in your office, just in your building.
We're near a train station so parking isn't important. Being in a city it turns out is important for us. You can go on your lunchbreak and do pretty much anything and get back in time for work. In our last office we couldn't do that, and frankly compared to our own office it sucks.
I'd avoid game consoles, nap couches, dark rooms etc. What's the point? I worked in one office with a fussball table. It was great to play but bad to work around. Focus on what makes people work well and keeps people happy, not what compensates for suck.
Quiet time:
One hour every day where no one can schedule meetings or call their co-workers. One hour of zero interruptions. Most tech people I know work after hours or from home, just to get this.
I'll spend 30mins in the morning carefully writing an email to detail the current status of my project. Then I'll get four or five 5-15min drivebys interspersed throughout the day to ask about updates, estimates, timelines, changes, or other projects. Part of the frustration is not even knowing if I can start a complicated task before someone comes in to derail it.
Try talking to your team members and manager. One of my senior colleague who mas mentoring others was in similar situation.
He worked out a deal with the manager - no interruption from 10am to 12 noon. He even got a board saying 'Quiet Hour 10 to 12' outside his cubicle. It took us a week to realize he was serious when our manager told us. We respected his quiet hours.
A lot depends on your space and budget, but whether you're working with 400 sq. ft. and a $1000 budget, or your own building and a seven-figure budget, it usually helps to look through pictures for inspiration.
I’ve worked in and designed several offices and regardless of the company size or budget, it’s important to get a few key things right:
1. Quality lighting - The more windows you can get, the better, and artificial lighting is just as important. Lighting is personal - some people like tons of light and others prefer to work in the dark. Make sure that you have some control over light variations and some adjustability in the different areas of the space (dimmers on lamps, curtains on windows, etc.)
2. A large table with plenty of seating - great for group projects, team lunches, company meetings, etc.
3. Comfortable seating - almost all companies skimp on seating. Considering a lot of people spend 10+ hours sitting down each day, $10 folding chairs are a joke. Quality seating doesn't have to be expensive, just comfy. Maybe provide each employee with $100-500 to choose his or her own chair. Great deals can be found at Ikea, Costco, or Craigslist.
4. Privacy - This doesn't necessarily mean individual offices or huge cubicles. Very few people want someone looking over their shoulder or eavesdropping on private conversations. Have enough space and spread people out so that they're not working on top of one another if at all possible.
5. Fun - It's different for every office, but fun stuff is important. A game room, a stocked fridge, a beer pong table, a TV, a gaming system, some board games, a pinball machine, a nap room, etc. Every company does it differently, but it's nice to have something that people can bond over and can provide a few minutes away from work.
6. Location - The location is important because if your employees have to commute two hours to get to your super awesome office, they’re still not going to be happy. Pick a location that provides an easy commute for as many people as possible and if the budget allows, choose a nice area. Walkability to restaurants and coffee shoppes is always good.
All our walls are covered in white boards. It lends a nice, brainstormy feel. We actually have a whole floor, and we sublet to a few other early-stage startups (one pretty normal web startup, one small trading firm, one consulting firm, and a couple others) so there are lots of different people around. We also have a nice view of the Empire State Building. :)
One thing not many people have mentioned, is avoid open plan. I currently have the misfortune to work in an open plan office and basically get far less productive work done than when I worked in one with cubicles where you at least could get some work done without being distracted by other people (I'm not saying that cube farms are ideal either .... )
[+] [-] robfitz|15 years ago|reply
Take advantage of stuff that already exists outside your building. Don't try to make the office "fun" prematurely, there are lots of places your team can walk to in 5 minutes. Similarly, fancy conference rooms are a waste when nice hotel cafes are way slicker and you can eat/drink like a king at every meeting for years compared to the cost of setting up your own conf room.
For chairs, I like the Ikea Markus for about $100, which I find just as good as an Aeron.
You need whiteboards, but NEVER buy them new. I buy the huge ones for about $20 a piece from office furniture repo stores. You'll also get desks, cabinets, etc there for 10% of their normal price.
Give good people the ability to work in comfort with enough space to themselves under relatively quiet conditions, and you'll get good results. Buy second hand and don't try to build everything into your little home -- take advantage of the city around you.
Edit: and lots of blank wall space, which allows people to brainstorm and create their own productivity systems with post-its and masking tape.
[+] [-] patrickyeon|15 years ago|reply
If I may, a case study of how to make a shitty office:
* Find space based mainly on price. Who cares if it's nearly a different city from where your whole team lives?
* Don't worry about natural light (or even worse, due to whatever circumstances ensure that only some people get natural light)
* Take whatever furniture is lying around.
* Everyone gets the cheapest refurbed machine you can find. If it was good enough for some office worker in 2002, it's good enough for your dev team now!
* Don't get anymore space than you need. When a new hire arrives, they can set up their 'office' in the storage/server room.
* Some cheap-o phones and Skype over a residential-grade DSL line is all you need. It doesn't look bad at all if you start every conversation with "H-hello? Can you hear me? I'm using Skype and-- oh there you are"
EDIT: formatting
[+] [-] philjackson|15 years ago|reply
* The reason I go into the office, rather than work from home, is the people there.
* I feel a thousand times better at the end of the day if I can see natural light.
* Running the OS/editor I want to is important.
[+] [-] StefanKarpinski|15 years ago|reply
http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/etsy-office-pics/
I'm an applied mathematician and data scientist at Etsy, and the office is really, really cool. My cousin, who's an architect from Sweden came to visit with his wife and son recently, and described it as a cross between design/art school, playground for grownups, and a computer lab. That's about right. His kid didn't want to leave :-)
We don't have much in the way of silence though—there's a lot of chaos and the place is a (very entertaining) circus much of the time. But if you want peace and quiet, it's pretty much always cool to work from home.
[+] [-] staunch|15 years ago|reply
If I had two requests: private bathroom and private kitchen area.
[+] [-] PStamatiou|15 years ago|reply
The first thing that came to mind is how much better (not sure if that is the right word) I would feel if working in a naturally lit place like that (with a nice view to boot).
The second big thing would be a hi-res monitor, ex 27-inch ACD. That combined with virtual desktops makes a world of difference, even compared to 1920x1200 res.
Third, I would want a decent kitchen area. I don't want to have to go out and eat all the time, because most places workplaces go to eat out at isn't healthy or doesn't have the option of healthy food. I'd much rather have a fridge full of stuff I can cook a quick 10 minute meal with. Working on a startup and eating healthy are not mutually exclusive. And on that note, office space near a gym for the walk back would be nice.
[+] [-] ry0ohki|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bearwithclaws|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnorion|15 years ago|reply
- Coffee, tea, and good water available. I do like taking breaks at times to run out to the coffee shop, but sometimes I just don't have time or energy or money, and being able to step into the kitchen and get what I need is great.
- Full spectrum "natural" lighting. I'm lucky that my office has tons of windows and a view, but when it gets dark or when I'm working on something detailed at my desk, a good full spectrum light is really important both for accurate color and just to be nice to my eyes.
- Dual computer monitors. I suppose this is a bit subjective but I go insane if I don't have a second monitor (doesn't have to be anything special, mine's just a small square) to put things like email and music and reference documents on while I work.
- Refrigerator space. I try to bring lunch most of the week instead of eating out, and more often than not it's leftovers from dinner with other random things thrown in... being able to just toss it in the fridge in the morning is great.
- A comfortable desk chair. I don't know about the $1200 chair (I certainly couldn't afford one at this point) but make sure it won't hurt your back after sitting for a long time.
[+] [-] Fritzinger|15 years ago|reply
1) The view - I'll be impressed if anyone can better this - the flat side of Table Mountain on the one side, the sea on the other, at night the lights of Long Street stretch out in front of us, and a good view of the stadium if that's your thing. I think that's just luck of the draw though, the company moved here before the CTN foreshore became fashionable.
2) There is no such thing as too many whiteboards, although glass walls with writing on them is also pretty awesome.
3) Great canteen with space to prepare food if you aren't into buying, but on a related note...
4) Close to decent food places, including one favourite that sells sandwich ingredients for a good price
5) A decent number of meeting rooms with whiteboards (the more I work the less I want to use projectors.. but we do have those too)
6) Unlikely that anyone else here would think of this, but you'll know why I bring this up: safety at night... again, luck of the draw but there's a CIDC station positioned half-way between us and the car park, and often a fair number of people around after dark. For me being able to work late (as opposed to early) is A Big Deal.
7) Not my thing but other people like proximity to gym - some cycle to work and shower before coming into the office, others hop in the pool during lunch.
8) There's a TV per floor with one or the other DSTV lite package, basically sports + discovery + Music channels (Mythbusters is most popular lunchtime viewing). The console of some sort that gets close to zero attention
9) (Soft) drinks fridge that is rapidly shortening my lifespan + fruit juice that runs out very quickly
10) A cleaner who brings real character to the office, as well as clean dishes
11) EDIT: forgot, we do have what looks like a decent coffee machine (does foam and stuff) but I'm not a good judge as I'm the only HN reader who doesn't drink the stuff. It is in constant use though.
12) EDIT: forgot some more... WATER COOLER FTW... I like that it is the kind that filters tap water and not the kind that takes those huge bottles of environmentally unsustainable mineral water.
Disclaimer... we're not a huge company but definitely not startup anymore, +-50 in our CTN office.
[+] [-] financegeek|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdb27|15 years ago|reply
-Our building is 100 feet from the ocean up on the cliffs. Going outside to get some air and see the Pacific is quite refreshing. It is also a few minutes away from a very nice surf spot.
-We have a nice clean kitchen.
-Plenty of space with large desks, Aeron chairs, and all the pixels you can handle.
-Fresh water. This is big for me since I drink a lot of water.
-Fast network connection. Not blazing fast, but fast enough.
-We have a very nice gym onsite complete with lockers, trainers, massage therapists, pool, track, volleyball, etc.
-Parking right outside building.
-Office is always clean.
-Nice restaurants nearby.
Dislikes:
-Lots of noise/people talking. 90% of it is not work related or interesting which is more the problem than the noise. This quote from PG's quotes page pretty well sums it up: "I'm surrounded by postmodern idiots and blatherers. Your writings give me hope."
-We have quite a bit of wasted space. e.g. a conference area which is rarely used. This space could be used better.
-Restrooms are to small and don't accommodate a full office well. Luckily there are others to use neraby.
[+] [-] mbthomas|15 years ago|reply
- even the minimal amount of physical activity they provide is a great break from sitting at a desk
- inter-office rivalry is great fun
Also, healthy food is a must, and like others have said office location is huge.
[+] [-] _b8r0|15 years ago|reply
We have natural light but I want a balcony. I think if we had a balcony it would be nicer for smokers (smoking's not permitted in the building) and we'd get a decent view of whatever's around.
We're pretty lucky. You can see the Kennet Canal from our roof, but otherwise it just looks like urban Reading, Berkshire, UK. Lately with the frankly crap weather we have more light from above than from outside.
We have a wide selection of alcoholic drinks and hangover cures - ornamental of course. It's mostly wacky stuff we'd never drink, although there's an 'Emergency Guinness' and this weird stuff called 'Dr Hangover - with 47 ingredients!'. We have a Nabaztag that tells us when pentests finish, when investigations are over and when we get paid. Unfortunately he's very insecure so we keep him on his own network.
We don't have whiteboards - we used to but not anymore. Instead we have detachable flipchart paper and blu tack. It's like infinite white boards, that is actually awesome. You just take it down when you don't need it.
We have a golden lucky chinese cat from vegas and a book with pictures of Japanese girls in school uniforms. I think there's a reason for both but I still haven't worked it out.
A good coffee machine/water cooler (hooked up to the mains) is essential. It doesn't have to be in your office, just in your building.
We're near a train station so parking isn't important. Being in a city it turns out is important for us. You can go on your lunchbreak and do pretty much anything and get back in time for work. In our last office we couldn't do that, and frankly compared to our own office it sucks.
I'd avoid game consoles, nap couches, dark rooms etc. What's the point? I worked in one office with a fussball table. It was great to play but bad to work around. Focus on what makes people work well and keeps people happy, not what compensates for suck.
[+] [-] johngalt|15 years ago|reply
Quiet time: One hour every day where no one can schedule meetings or call their co-workers. One hour of zero interruptions. Most tech people I know work after hours or from home, just to get this.
I'll spend 30mins in the morning carefully writing an email to detail the current status of my project. Then I'll get four or five 5-15min drivebys interspersed throughout the day to ask about updates, estimates, timelines, changes, or other projects. Part of the frustration is not even knowing if I can start a complicated task before someone comes in to derail it.
[+] [-] netc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gatsby|15 years ago|reply
Just for example, I'm a big fan of the new 37signals office: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2593-official-pictures-of-our...
I’ve worked in and designed several offices and regardless of the company size or budget, it’s important to get a few key things right:
1. Quality lighting - The more windows you can get, the better, and artificial lighting is just as important. Lighting is personal - some people like tons of light and others prefer to work in the dark. Make sure that you have some control over light variations and some adjustability in the different areas of the space (dimmers on lamps, curtains on windows, etc.)
2. A large table with plenty of seating - great for group projects, team lunches, company meetings, etc.
3. Comfortable seating - almost all companies skimp on seating. Considering a lot of people spend 10+ hours sitting down each day, $10 folding chairs are a joke. Quality seating doesn't have to be expensive, just comfy. Maybe provide each employee with $100-500 to choose his or her own chair. Great deals can be found at Ikea, Costco, or Craigslist.
4. Privacy - This doesn't necessarily mean individual offices or huge cubicles. Very few people want someone looking over their shoulder or eavesdropping on private conversations. Have enough space and spread people out so that they're not working on top of one another if at all possible.
5. Fun - It's different for every office, but fun stuff is important. A game room, a stocked fridge, a beer pong table, a TV, a gaming system, some board games, a pinball machine, a nap room, etc. Every company does it differently, but it's nice to have something that people can bond over and can provide a few minutes away from work.
6. Location - The location is important because if your employees have to commute two hours to get to your super awesome office, they’re still not going to be happy. Pick a location that provides an easy commute for as many people as possible and if the budget allows, choose a nice area. Walkability to restaurants and coffee shoppes is always good.
[+] [-] thesteg|15 years ago|reply
Free drinks, fruits and lunch. One worry less to think about.
Office doors. Silence to get something done.
[+] [-] d4nt|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endtime|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthedart|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thibaut_barrere|15 years ago|reply